Man arrested for stealing Raveena Tandon's hubby’s cheque book

Raveena Tandon and husband Anil Thadani.

The police on Sunday arrested a man on charges of stealing a cheque book of actor Raveena Tandon’s husband Anil Thadani.

The accused, Kishore Kumar Kanojiya, had handed over the cheque book to a gang of cyber criminals who tried to withdraw Rs. 12.50 lakh from Thadani’s account, said senior inspector Nand Kumar Gopale.

Kanojiya is the member of the same gang that hacked into accounts to pilfer money. He was nabbed from Malad by a police team.

Officials said Kanojiya could have obtained the signed cheque book of Thadani from a person working in Thadani’s office. Then he passed it onto the members of his gang who then tried to encash the cheques.

Of the Rs 12.50 lakh deposit in the account, they could withdraw only Rs 50,000 as Thadani had blocked the account after the initial withdrawal was made.

While in other cases the gang hacked accounts online, in Thadani’s case they made physical withdrawal of money after stealing the signed cheque book. Police are now trying to find out the suspected insider in Thadani’s office.

Officials said the main hacker, a Nigerian national, is still at large. The gang facing cases in Mumbai, Thane and Nashik, was active since March this year. And apart from hacking, the gang was also involved in credit/debit card phishing and also ran conning lottery schemes.

The Property Cell of the Crime Branch, which arrested Kanojiya, has already arrested Salim Sayyed alias Anil Verma. One of the main accused, Muzammil Tajdar alias Sumit Gupta, has been admitted to GT Hospital, after he came under a BEST bus and fractured his leg, when he assaulted the police team while trying to evade arrest.

Officials said the gang had a defined hierarchy and Tajdar and the hacker were the main operators and received a major portion of the loot. Others were into forging documents and into withdrawing money. So far nearly 15 people have been duped to the tune of Rs 4-5 crore by the gang.